Joan Slonczewski

The Highest Frontier Joan Slonczewski

A Cuban-American president's granddaughter goes to college on a space satellite, to escape Earth's invasion by an alien plague.




JENNY RAMOS KENNEDY, a student cloned from a Cuban-American president, goes to college on a space satellite to escape Earth's invasion by an alien plague. Frontera College keeps students safe from the War on Ultra, the invading ultraphytes that spray cyanide on what remains of the Earth's overheated ecosystem. Jenny picks courses on Toynet, the virtual reality network, while keeping her best friend out of Guantanamo for hacking the Pentagon, and covering the bizarre incidents of her neurodivergent roomate. Meanwhile in class, her geocentrist professor expounds the wisdom of Aristotle, while her biology professor explains how life will go extinct.




For biology lab, Jenny and her friends decide to save Earth from extinction. They make mutant plants that will end the War on Ultra, fix Earth's climate and make humans wiser than Aristotle. But the semester's almost done, and their experiment has just one chance...